Are you oppressed? Acts 10:37,38

Acts 10:37,38 ³⁷ You yourselves know the thing which took place throughout all Judea, starting from Galilee, after the baptism which John proclaimed, ³⁸ Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

The idea of people being oppressed occurs a lot today in political discussions.  People are either oppressed or oppressors depending on their demographics. 

The Bible talks about oppression a lot but not the kind that politicians do.  You can decide which kind is more important.

In Luke 13, Jesus encountered a woman who was bent over and couldn’t straighten herself up.  And He healed her.  And when a religious leader complained that Jesus had done this on the Sabbath, Jesus responded by noting that anybody would water his animals on the Sabbath, shouldn’t a woman whom “Satan bound for 18 years” be let loosed on the Sabbath? 

We didn’t see the woman’s MRI of her spine.  I am sure she had degenerative discs of the spine and probably severe osteoporosis.  Yet Jesus attributed her problem to Satan and not physical causes. 

The text quoted above says that Jesus healed all who were oppressed by the devil.  He could have just said that Jesus healed everybody, which He did.  Jesus’ goal wasn’t to go looking for people to heal.  Most times they came to Him.  This woman happened to be where Jesus was, and Jesus couldn’t just ignore her. 

The question is whether this text is saying or suggesting that every person that Jesus healed was oppressed by the devil.  Peter’s mother-in-law who had a fever?  How did Jesus heal her?  He spoke to the fever, like it could hear Him.  (Luke 4:39)

Did Jesus heal people who were not oppressed by the devil?  Why would it only mention those who were? 

The fact is that we can’t see spiritual forces, spiritual realities.   When Job got sick, I am sure that if he went to Mayo Clinic, they would have found all kinds of abnormalities in his blood work, but the Bible is clear that all his ailments were from the devil.

Science and medicine are able to treat many of the physical ailments that people have. 

The mistake is seeing all physical ailments as entirely physical that can only be treated by physical means.  Not many people are able to deal with physical ailments spiritually, but I think a good first step is seeing that life is not all just the things that we can see and measure in a lab.  And our outcomes are not limited to what scientists and doctors think or say.

Yes, I had chemotherapy for lymphoma, but it didn’t go away until after I had reached stage 4, and the doctor essentially gave up any hope that the treatment was going to make any difference. 

Never lose hope for physical healing, and whatever you do to get it, make God your first hope and option and not your last.